My Life as a Prisoner, by Rufus Shinra
by Licoriceallsorts
Summary: How exactly does the world's most closely-guarded teenager escape the vigilance of the Turks to become the financial mastermind of a terrorist organisation bent on destroying his own father? Let alone find some privacy in which to explore his sexuality?
1. Chapter 1

_Form S-DAR/3S Interrogation Transcript _

**神羅電気動力株式会社 **SHINRA ELECTRIC POWER COMPANY

Department of Administrative Research

Name of prisoner: S-classified

ID No.: n/a

Category of prisoner: S*

Interrogators:

08:00-12:00 Rude S-DAR.01/M/56.S, Reno S-DAR.01/M/62.S,

12:00-16:00 Mink S-DAR.01/F/70.R, Cavour S-DAR.01/M/72.R

16:00-20:00 Knox S-DAR.01/M/48.R, Hunter S-DAR.01/F/78.R

20:00-01:15 Rude S-DAR.01/M/56.S, Reno S-DAR.01/M/62.S,

Supervisors: Tseng, S-DAR/M/64S*; Rosalind S-DAR.01/F/55.S

Date: 11/05/1993 - 12/05/1993

Duration: 08:00 - 01:15

_page 124_

**Reno: **How long have we been at this now? Fifteen fucking hours. I'm tired. I'm so fucking tired of this goddamn bullshit. Aren't you tired? You gotta be fried. Look at his red eyes, Rude. He can't hardly keep them open.

**Rude**: You wanna get some rest, kid? Stop stonewalling.

**Reno: **Look, you know and we know that this ain't going away. Your Old Man ain't gonna let it go till we get to the bottom of it. So he can, y'know, exonerate you.

**Prisoner S: **[_laughs]_

**Reno: **So, you wanna keep going, we can keep going. Or you can tell us who your contacts are in Avalanche.

**Prisoner S**: I'm not a snitch.

**Reno: ** Huh. Okay. Musta stung, though, to have Fuhito turn on you like that, after all you did for him.

**Rude: **You need to choose your loyalties more wisely.

**Prisoner S**: [_yawns]_

**Rude: **Poor little sleepy-head.

**Reno**: Yeah, every bone in his body is gotta be crying out for some sleep. Wouldn't that be sweet, V.P.? Lie down on a nice soft bed, close your eyes, not a care in the world…. Sounds good, doesn't it? Sweet sweet oblivion. You must be longing to forget what a sucker you've been. Taken for a ride by a con artist like Fuhito.

**Rude: **Poor sap.

**Reno**: And we always thought he was so clever.

_page 125_

**Rude: **He's just a kid.

**Reno:** So tell us, what d'you think Fuhito did with all your money? Oh, yeah, sorry - I mean your ma's money, don't I? Because that's where it came from. Isn't it? You used the money she left you. Your Palmer inheritance. You wanna know something? At first Tseng was kinda impressed you figured out how to launder that gil all on your own. That was before we found out who the real brains in the operations were.

**Rude: **We know about Pia and Mercedes Gandara.

**Prisoner S**: That must be a new development. I was under the distinct impression your Commander - oh wait, I mean your former commander, don't I? - had kept that information from you.

**Reno: **The records have been unsealed, you little shit.

**Prisoner S: **Well, since you now know about Pia Gandara, I don't see what more there is I can tell you. She was my contact. My conduit, if you like. She could have told you much more than I can. If only Veld hadn't been in such a hurry to silence them, you would have been able to question them now. What a shame.

**Reno**: I was asking you what you think Fuhito did with all those millions you gave him. Your ma's money. You think he spent it all on weapons? Recruits? Fucking cloning tanks for his sick shit? Let me tell you something. Charlie did some calculations when he was down in Wutai. He wanted to know how Avalanche was spending your money. Now, you gotta remember it wasn't just your money Fuhito was spending. A lot of the gil he got his hands on in Wutai was legit aid money, investment capital from the Shinra Regeneration Fund. Godo must be kicking his own dumb ass thinking of all that gil down the the drain.

**Rude**: He could have built hospitals.

**Reno**: Does it make you feel better knowing you aren't the only one who got played, V.P.?

**Rude: **Roads. Bridges. Schools.

**Reno: **Charlie reckons Fuhito's got to have thirty million, minimum, stashed away somewhere. You got any idea where that might be? Was he making any investments you know about? Maybe through that company you set up? Did he buy any property? Gold? Art? Rude, remember that painting that sold for six million last month? Remind me again, who was the buyer?

**Rude: **Anonymous.

**Reno: **That's a line of inquiry we might pursue. Probably it'll turn out not to be Fuhito. But it could be; that's my point. He's got enough to retire and live in luxury the rest of his days. Maybe we'll have to call him the one that got away. Thirty million, man. With that kind of gil you could get yourself your own private army. Real soldiers this time. Not fucking amateur eco-warrior trust fund babies. Rude, if you were Fuhito, what would you do with your private army?

**Rude: **Clean up my past.

**Reno: **Get rid of anyone who knew too much?

**Prisoner S: **With Tseng and his team here to protect me, I have nothing to fear.

[_At this juncture the prisoner appeared to be falling asleep. Rude slammed the table with his fists.]_

**Rude: **Wake up.

**Reno**: V.P., you know how your ma died when you were born, right?

**Prisoner S: **It's not something I'm allowed to forget.

_page 126_

**Reno**: Yeah, she died, and that sucks, not gonna deny it, but still. She didn't leave you empty-handed. Three hundred and forty million gil, and that was just her personal fortune. Plus the Patricia Shinra Charitable Trust. What kind of charities did the late Mrs Shinra support, Rude?

**Rude: **Health clinics. Mobile libraries. Scholarships.

**Reno**: She was a great lady.

**Prisoner S: **Don't speak of her as if you knew her. You never knew her.

**Reno: **Her reputation lives on, though, right? She left a son behind to keep the torch burning and all. In her will she told your old man to give you control of her fortune when you were sixteen years old. Sixteen years old. That's a pretty big responsibility for someone so young.

**Rude**: She must have had a lot of faith in her baby.

**Reno: **So,you think your ma would be proud to see what you did with her money? Funding terrorists. You call that honouring her name?

**Prisoner S: **Shut up.

**Reno: **You were her only child. She sacrificed her life so you could live. What do you think she'd say to you if she could see you now?

**Prisoner S: **Fuck you, Reno.

**Rude: **I don't think she'd say that.

**Reno**: I heard it was a real love match. The Chief says your old man worshipped the ground she walked on. A real happy marriage. You don't see many of them. Kinda weird to think of the Old Man being like that, isn't it? Just a regular happily married man. And then you came along -

**Prisoner S: **Shut up.

**Reno: **I mean, now that I think about it, it makes sense you'd want to kill him too. Complete the set.

[_At this juncture Prisoner S got to his feet, picked up his chair and threw it at the interrogators. Neither sustained any injuries.]_

**Rude: **Looks like you hit a nerve there, partner.

**Reno: **You want us to put the cuffs back on?

**Prisoner S: **I want to see Tseng. Now.

**Reno: **Tseng's got better things to do. I wouldn't count on seeing him any time soon.

**Prisoner S: **You're full of shit, Reno. I know exactly where he is. That's a two-way mirror, he's standing right there on the other side, watching me. I know you're there, Tseng.

**Rude**: I'm hungry. Let's go eat, partner.

**Reno: **What about him?

**Rude: **He's not going anywhere.

**Reno: **That's true. He doesn't know anything, anyway.

**Rude: **He probably never met Fuhito before yesterday.

**Reno**: You reckon? But no, Rude, that can't be right. Fuhito knew him. He called him by name.

**Rude: **Everyone knows what Rufus Shinra looks like.

**Reno: **You got a good point there, partner. Man, this kid's self-delusion is off the charts. The Old Man gifts his baby boy a seat on the board, and suddenly the kid believes he's king of the world.

_page 127_

He thinks helping a terrorist clean out his trust fund makes him a criminal mastermind. I almost feel sorry for the chump.

**Prisoner S: **I have met him. More than once.

**Rude: **That's kinda hard to believe.

**Prisoner S: **_He_ was the one who wanted to meet _me_.

**Reno: **Sure, V.P., if you say so. C'mon, Rude, let's go to Ho-Chu's. I could murder a curry. This'll keep.

**Prisoner S: **I set it up. I organised a meeting with Fuhito right under your noses and you never suspected a thing.

**Rude: **Sure you did. We believe you, don't we, Reno?

**Prisoner S: **Two years ago. At the Moonlily Ball. That was the first time we met.

**Reno: **The Moonlily Ball? In Icicle Inn?

**Prisoner S: **The Moonlily Ball, 2001. Check out the guest list. Will that do for starters, Tseng? Go follow that clue and see where it leads you. If you're the Turks you think you are, it shouldn't take you long. Let me know when you've got it. I'll be right here waiting. That's all I have to say.

* * *

Warnings: this fic contains OC character death, mention of suicide, anorexia, self-harm, drug abuse, alcoholism, homophobia (President Shinra is a homophobe) and scenes of torture. The attitudes and opinions expressed by the characters are not necessarily those of the author.

Concrit welcome.

Author's Note: When I wrote _Death is Part of the Process_, my novelisation of the events of Crisis Core and Before Crisis, there was one major question I didn't address: how exactly did Rufus do it? He's young enough that he ought to be in school; he is monitored almost literally 24 hours a day, and yet somehow he managed to act in complete secrecy while negotiating with Avalanche and passing along to them sums of money large enough to make any bank manager sit up and take notice. How? There one's scene in BC where Rufus is having a meeting with the three Avalanche leaders on the Great Hand of Da Chao. That's impossible. Rufus has more security around him than little Prince George; his minders would never have let that happen. So I started wondering, if BC were _realistic_, within the context of the world SE created, how could he have done it? And how could he have made contact with Avalanche in the first place? This fic suggests just one possible way in which it might all have gone down. It is consistent with the world building and plot of DIPOTP, and is cross-posted to A O 3.

It's been so long since I posted here, I've forgotten how to format!


	2. Chapter 2

It's been three days. Surely they must have found it by now. The little thing they're looking for.

It'll be in one of the files. Hundreds, maybe thousands of files, maybe one for each day of my life. Six thousand, seven hundred and fifty-two lever arch files stuffed with photographs and observation notes and weight charts and vaccination records and a copy of every test I ever took at school; all my report cards; the security clearance reports on my friends and their families and my teachers; on anyone who touched my life in any way. And in the twelfth file of the days of my life, a copy of my mother's death certificate.

They keep my files in a locked room inside another locked room where they keep all their other files. And if anything were to happen to this building - oh, let's say terrorists blew it up, all seventy floors of it - nothing would be lost from their meticulously organised record of my dull, dull life because it's all stored on disks as well. Two sets of disks, kept at separate locations. What a treasure trove for future historians.

I don't care. Let them have that dull dull life. Nothing of any importance is in those files, nothing that really matters. If Tseng wants to find what he's looking for - the reason why I did it - he'll have to look inside himself. Use his imagination. He'll have to spend some time thinking about me.

He almost killed me last week. When he brought me home from Corel, after the reactor exploded; when he found out I'd told Dad about Veld and Veld's daughter, he took off his belt and he beat me, in exactly the same way, I imagine, that Veld used to beat him. He probably would have gone all the way and killed me if Reno hadn't stepped in. Veld trained him to be my shield and protector but I broke through that wall, I got through it and touched something Veld taught him to seal away. So, now he knows. He knows he could kill me.

He won't, of course. He'll be on his guard from now on. It only happened because he didn't know it could.

Tseng is a man who doesn't normally let his emotions get the better of him. Last week, with me, he lost control. That came as a surprise to him. To me too, if I'm honest. A not-entirely-unpleasant surprise, for me at any rate. I'm sorry they insisted on curing me. Even now I can feel a sort of lingering afterglow, an achy tightness, in my neck and shoulders. Souvenir of pain. Rude said I'll be scarred for life. That's something, I suppose.

The little thing they're looking for is an invitation card. On the night of the Moonlily Ball, the guests' invitation cards are collected at the door, their names checked against a list before they pass through security. A thousand invitation cards would fill quite a few file boxes. The one they're looking for, the one that's been touched by Fuhito's hand, or, if not actually touched by him, been close to him, does not have his name on it. But even so, finding it shouldn't be _this_ difficult.

How did I get my hands on an invitation, when Wendy guards them with her life? I saw an opportunity and I took it. Dad would have been so proud of me. He's always telling me a successful entrepreneur is a man who knows how to seize the moment.

After he appointed me Vice-President, he gave me an office on his Secretariat's floor, literally directly below his desk, metaphorically sitting on me. Before becoming my office, it had served as a meeting room. It's beautifully furnished, I'll give it that. Fabulous views, if you like views of Midgar. I was sitting with my feet up on my desk playing _Moon Ball Magic_ on my PHS, when through my open door I saw one of the post-room boys carrying the stationer's boxes into Wendy's office, and the thought came into my head, _if you could get your hands on one of those cards, it might be just what you need_.

About a quarter of an hour later, Wendy came out of her office and headed for the stairs to Dad's floor. She smiled at me as she passed by.

One of the advantages of not being taken seriously is that no one is really interested in what you do. They all have their own work to get on with, and as long as you're not making a nuisance of yourself, they won't bother themselves with you. None of the secretaries in the typing pool asked me why I was going into Wendy's office. I wasn't answerable to them. I've always gone where I like in the building, and our employees are obliged to pretend they're glad to see me. Hojo's floors are the exception: Dad won't let me set foot there. And the Turks' floor. Veld makes me welcome - _made_ me welcome - but Tseng usually finds some excuse to get rid of me. I think he feels I shouldn't be there for the same reason my old man thinks I shouldn't visit the labs. They're afraid of _contagion_.

And now I'm Tseng's permanent guest. Oh the irony.

I took one of the invitation cards from the box on Wendy's desk. Beautiful cards, works of art, different designs every year. That year they were a heavy cream vellum, embossed with a silver pattern of moons and lilies, watermarked with the company logo and finely edged in gold. Before leaving her office I also took a hole punch, on the off chance that one of the secretaries quizzed me on the way out. They didn't. They probably didn't even mention to Wendy that I had been in her office. Later, when I went to return the hole punch (because I had one of my own), I heard her on the phone, complaining to the stationers that the card count was one short. It never occurred to her that the card had been stolen.

With the blank card safely in my possession, I waited until Wendy had sent the card boxes and a print-out of the guest list down to the calligrapher, and then I hacked into her work account (something I'd taught myself to do when I was in primary school) and made the necessary alteration to the master guest list. Then I went to my apartment, took a romantic novel down from the shelf, glued the card between two of its pages, and put it back on the shelf.

A week later, Dad and I went to the Gandara's house for dinner. On the way, in the limo, Dad asked me what that thing was sticking out of my coat pocket. I said I was lending Mercedes a book. He asked to see it. He turned it over in his big fat hands, reading the front and back covers, and declared, "Looks like a load of sentimental drivel. Do you like this kind of thing, son?" in a tone which let me know he would be disappointed but not terribly surprised if I did.

I said I hadn't read it. I told him Allegra Fortescue had given me the book, which was a lie but not one he'd ever discover. My last nanny had left the book behind when she was dismissed. I'd rescued it and put it on my shelf.

Dad kept hold of the book until we arrived at the party, and when he saw Mercedes he beckoned her over and kissed her on both cheeks like an uncle. I don't know how she kept her smile on. Mercedes was the pretty one; Pia was the clever one. Dad must have given Veld the order to -

There's no point in going over that. What's done is done.

Pia might have been the academic one, but Mercedes had her wits about her. When Dad put the novel into her hand and said, "Here's the book my boy promised you," she only blinked, and said, "That's wonderful. I've been longing to read this for ages."

"You be careful, young lady. Too much reading will spoil those pretty eyes. Men never make passes at girls who wear glasses, eh? Eh?"

Mrs Gandara rescued us, by which I mean she claimed Dad and steered him away from the children; she wanted to show him off to her other guests. Mercedes leaned forward to kiss my cheek - a peremptory peck, since I was out of favour - and whispered in my ear, "Rufe, what the fuck?"

I put my lips against her own ear and whispered back, "Give it to Pia. There's something in it for our mutual friend. She'll know what to do with it."

To anyone watching us, we must have looked like two teenagers who were keen on each other. Mrs Gandara must have been delighted. She was very ambitious for her daughters. And yet she barely knew them. Mercedes and Pia were strangers to their parents, as I am to mine. It's not an unusual situation among my circle of friends.

Oh, my door's opening. Is it dinner-time? It must be: here's Rosalind with my tray. She's never come in before. Presumably the mere sight of me disgusts and enrages her. She used to be engaged to one of Hojo's scientists. Dr Philip Harper. He was killed when Avalanche raided our labs this time last year. She blames me, which is only natural. I _am_ to blame.

She lets the metal drop onto the table, _clang_, a painful sound.

"Tseng ordered me not to come in. I've never disobeyed an order in my life. But since I'm here - "

Her fist is moving fast. I'm not ducking. Let's do this.

Oh, ow, fuck. Bloody hell, she punched me right out of my chair. My chair's fallen onto me. My ear's ringing. Half my head's on fire.

"Do you feel better now?" I want her to get her money's worth.

She's flexing her fist. "Actually, yes."

"Any time." I mean it. One punch won't be enough, surely.

Oh, no, is she getting a heal materia out? Don't do that, Roz. You have to let me feel it. This damn Turk is so bloody conscientious. She's been my bodyguard and my firearms instructor since I was eight years old.

She's setting my chair upright. She won't go so far as to offer me a hand, though. I can't get up right now, Roz; my head is full of pins and needles thanks to the cure you cast.

"Eat that." She's pointing at my meal tray. "Tseng said you have to eat."

* * *

I haven't eaten it. It's the first thing he noticed when he came in. "I hope you're not planning a hunger strike, Rufus."

"Why?" I still can't quite believe he's come to interrogate me himself. Oh frabjous day!

"Starving yourself is not easy. Hunger strikers usually give up after a few days. Please don't feel you need to prove your resolve to us. We don't want to have to force feed you."

Is he sure about that? I think some of his subordinates would enjoy it immensely.

He sits down on the other metal folding chair, pushes the tray aside, and lays before my eyes a beautiful cream vellum, silver embossed, gold-rimmed invitation card. The name on the card is written in purple ink. "Can you tell me about this?"

I'm looking straight into his eyes. "Yes."

He looks straight back into mine. My heart is pounding so loudly I can count every beat: two, three, four, five -

"What can you tell me about this card?"

"Ah. I'm sorry. I didn't understand the question. That's the Moonlily Ball invitation I gave to Pia via her sister Mercedes."

"When you gave it to her, it was blank."

"Is that another question?"

"Who wrote the card for her?"

Let me take a closer look. _Pia Gandara and Guest._ Perfect lettering. "It's a very good forgery, isn't it? I doubt Pia could have done this. Mercedes, perhaps. Art was always her strongest subject. But it looks like the work of a trained calligrapher."

"Who, Rufus?"

"I don't know, Tseng. You'd have to ask Pia. Oh, wait, you can't, can you? Oops."

He plucks the card from my fingers and slides it back into his top pocket. "Fuhito was Pia Gandara's 'Guest', wasn't he?"

"You know the answer to that. You must have checked the security footage before you came here. You saw him."

"The woman in the yellow dress with the long blond hair?"

"Fuhito does love a disguise."

"Yes, I'm sure it was very amusing for all three of you. You didn't talk together for very long. What did he say to you?"

"That he needed money."

"And you said…?"

"I told him I wanted my father dead, and if they would undertake to do it, I'd help them. With money and with information."

"That's all?"

Isn't that enough? What more does he want? "Well, naturally, Fuhito did ask me why I wanted the old man dead."

"And what did you tell him?"

He's leaning in, all ears. This is what he really wants to know. Not how I did it. _Why_ I did it.

"I told him I was tired of waiting for my turn, and that I thought I could make a better job of running the company than my old man. Which is true, by the way."

He knows it's true - anyone who's had to sit through just one of our board meetings would know it's true - but right now, that's not his focus. I've given him a reason for why I did it, and now he's going to explain to me why I was wrong. Show me the error of my ways. Help me grow and mature as a person. It's what Veld would want him to. So much more constructive than flaying the skin off my shoulders with a belt buckle. And yet, somehow, so much less honest.

He's opening his mouth. Here he goes:

"Fuhito's goal is to destroy Shinra entirely. He's not aiming for a management reshuffle."

"I know that. He was perfectly upfront about it."

"And you didn't foresee any problems?" He folds his arms. "All right. Let's do a hypothetical. Let's suppose your scheme has succeeded. Avalanche has assassinated your father, and you are now President. Fuhito is as determined to destroy your company as he was before. How do you propose we deal with your ex-allies?"

"I'd use my inside knowledge to destroy them first. We can disregard Shears and Elfe. Fuhito's the lynchpin. Remove him, and Avalanche would collapse. I'd find a way to lure him to a meeting and then kill him. He can't resist an opportunity to outsmart me. The riskier, the better, so that's the bait I'd use. He loves disguises, so some big event would be perfect, something formal he can dress up for. Dad's funeral, for instance. Fuhito definitely wouldn't want to miss that."

Tseng's not amused. "The individual survivors of a collapsed and fragmented Avalanche would still be capable of incriminating you. That's the real danger."

"Once we'd cut off the head, you could dispose of the body. It's what you do best. And our PR department are experts in neutralising rumours. Dad's given them plenty of practise. If we could sweep the disaster at Nibelheim under the carpet, covering up my involvement with Avalanche should be a piece of cake."

Tseng's face! Like a stone! Completely stumped for a reply!

No, wait, here he goes. "And Fuhito - did he know you planned to turn on him as soon as you'd obtained your objective?"

"Well, naturally I didn't spell it out for him. But he's not stupid. There was no other possible endgame."

"And yet he was willing to take orders from you."

"Was he? The last time I looked, my old man was still alive, so I think you can draw your own conclusions. I know it must pain you to hear this, Tseng, but your Commander was stretching the truth just a teensy bit when he told you I was the one controlling Avalanche. I never controlled them. We were more like… business partners."

"You have thrown away a fortune, with nothing to show for it."

Yes, thank you, Captain Obvious. Reno and Rude have already been at pains to point this out to me.

I wish they would stop harping on about the money. What use is money anyway if you don't spend it on the things you want? What Tseng fails to understand - what they all fail to understand - is that I don't need my trust fund. I'm not like Lazard. I can stand on my own two feet. My great-grandfather Rufus transformed his brush and broom business into a multi-million gil weapons company; my grandfather Augustus and my dad build that weapons company into what Shinra is today, and in that respect at least (but in no other, I hope), I am my father's son. If I walked out of this building tomorrow with nothing but the clothes I stood up in, in ten years I could build a business to rival my Dad's. _If_ I were allowed a free hand - which, of course, would never happen. The point is, that money's not my life raft. I wouldn't drown without it. I'm more than capable of making my own way in the world on my wits and talents alone. Not that I'll ever be set free to prove it.

Dad's sixty-six. He's had his innings. He needs to get out of the way. Die, or retire; either would do. If Dad were a private person, I could get a doctor in, get a diagnosis, get power of attorney and shuffle him off to a nursing home where he could play golf all day long and be perfectly happy. The way things are, though, I first need to wrest control of the board away from him. And I was making good progress, too, until fucking Fuhito decided to blow up the Corel Reactor. Now, who knows how long Dad will keep me a prisoner. Every day I'm stuck in here is another step backwards.

"Rufus?"

"Sorry. I was thinking."

"One more thing about this invitation. Why didn't you simply put Pia Gandara on the official guest-list?"

"She was on the list. But her card only said _Pia Gandara_. I needed it to say _Pia Gandara and guest."_

"You could have asked if she could bring a guest."

"And draw unnecessary attention to her? I don't think that would have been a good idea."

"Someone could easily have noticed the discrepancy."  
"If I were afraid of taking risks I wouldn't have started down this road in the first place."

Tseng steeples his fingers and presses them to his lips, looking at me. When he takes this pose, it means he's got a thought in his head he's not sure he should utter. Which makes me all the more eager to know what he's thinking. "Say it, Tseng."

"Despite your plausible rationale, I suspect you enjoyed the subterfuge. Making a simple request would have been too straightforward for you."

"How well you know me."

I said that sarcastically, meaning to imply that his view of me is a bit too cynical to be wholly accurate. But the thing is, he's right. And it's true, he does know me_. _

"Do I?" he says. "I wonder…"

And I know him. I know his tones. That note of disappointed reproach: _I expected so much more from you, Rufus, but maybe I've been wrong all this time…_

He's looking at his watch. Wait - he's standing up. Why? He's not leaving already, is he? He just got here.

"I'm running late. I have to go. We'll carry on with this tomorrow, Rufus."

But when is tomorrow? I have no windows, no clock, no light, no sun.

He's picking up my tray. "I'm going to get someone to re-heat this, and then you're going to eat it."

"Yes, nanny."

He's turning, he's going. Oh wait, wait, there's something I have to ask him: "Tseng - "

He turns back. "Yes?"

"Where's Dark Nation?"

"She's been sent to your aunt's farm."

Aunt Pansy's farm? All right, that's good. That's the best place for her. Dark Nation knows Aunt Pansy. She'll be happy there; as happy as she can be without me. Aunt Pansy will take good care of my girl.

He's starting to leave again. "Tseng, wait. I wanted to ask you - "

One of the Turks fell into the mako when the Corel reactor exploded and I haven't seen her since. It's been a week. "Aviva - how is she?"

"She's in a coma. The doctors don't know when she'll come round. She may never regain consciousness."

"I'm sorry - "

He cuts me off with a look. And rightly so. _Sorry_ is a cheap, paltry, lazy word. Totally inadequate. I should know better.

"Nobody wants to hear how sorry you are, Rufus."

"I understand that. And I know you won't believe me, but I have to say it anyway. I never intended for this to happen."

"Maybe so." He's turning away as he speaks. "But it did."

* * *

_Author's note: "Wendy" is Wendy Pretorius, President Shinra's Executive Assistant. She's an older woman and Rufus has known her all his life. _

_"Aunt Pansy" is Pansy Palmer, Director Palmer's sister; they are cousins of Rufus's mother. Aunt Pansy trains racing chocobos. _


	3. Chapter 3

I told Tseng a lie earlier. Fuhito did not ask me why I wanted Dad dead. Not at the Moonlily Ball, nor on either of the other two occasions when we met face to face. He couldn't have cared less. After one look at me, he believed he understood me. He'd dealt with my kind before, or what he assumed was my kind: bored aimless rich kids neglected by their parents, searching for a guru to inject some meaning into their lives. I didn't interest him. My money did.

After I gave the invitation card to Mercedes, I was living on tenterhooks. Would he accept? Would he come? I allowed myself just one phone call to Pia. "Well? Well? Has he said anything?"

"He might come. He might not. He won't commit."

"If he wants my money, he'll come."

"It's a huge risk."

"Tell him I personally guarantee his safety."

He had to come. He _had_ to. Five minutes of his time was all I needed. What would I say to him? How could I persuade him? I must have drafted a thousand different speeches in my mind.

Dad noticed something was up. "You're very quiet these days, son. Got your mind on the Ball? Don't tell me - there's a special somebody, eh, eh? You young dog. I'll have to keep my eye on you."

His awful, leering, conspiratorial wink was all the warning I needed. I redoubled my efforts to conceal my feelings.

My mother was the one who founded the Moonlily Ball as a fundraiser for her various charities. Dad has keep it going in her memory. That year the ball was held at Icicle Inn in a series of well-heated inflatable domes - two with actual log-burning fireplaces - amply furnished with sofas, floral arrangements, chandeliers, bars, and dance floors. Outside, under the stars, artists had created an ice sculpture garden that nobody visited because they were wearing ball gowns and the temperature was fifteen below. Most of them arrived by private plane or helicopter and would leave the same way. Dad and I always fly separately. That way, if one of us goes down, the other will live to make our enemies rue the day.

I did my duty, circulating among our guests, shaking hands, shaking more hands, kissing cheeks, smiling until my face hurt, exchanging inane pleasantries with various boring people, occasionally enjoying a brief catch-up with an old school friend, and putting my name on girls' dance cards. Never the same girl twice. Spread the jam right across the toast, as nanny used to say. I didn't even have the pleasure of watching Tseng glide through the crowds like a… Like a snake. Yes. Streamlined, fluid, alert, on the hunt. Veld had sent him off on some mission to the middle of nowhere.

I moved with the flow of the evening and waited for the current to bring Pia and her guest to me, which it did, eventually, after the silent auction and the acrobats and the buffet supper, but before the dancing had begun. When I saw Pia's companion was a woman, disappointment churned so violently in my gut I was afraid I might make a spectacle of myself. _He's decided not to come - They don't trust me - They suspect a trap - They want nothing to do with me… _

Pia seized my hand, pulled me close, kissed my cheek and whispered, "This is our friend," then drew back and said, "Vice-President, allow me to introduce my cousin from Forland, Gloria Pickering."

What an insanely wild, phenomenally arrogant thing that was to do, waltzing into the dragon's lair in the full glare of high society, wearing stiletto heels and a yellow ball gown, to shake my hand right under the eyes of our Turks. I am sure that when Pia suggested it to him, he jumped at the chance. He would have found the prospect irresistible.

Once I knew his true identity, I could see the blond hair was a wig. It didn't match his dark eyes. He - she - took my hand. His - her - hand was neither large nor small, finely manicured, with short red lacquered nails. Strong grip. They - he - she - was on the tall side for a woman, though not exceptionally so. A little shorter than me, and I wasn't as tall then as I am now. I'd only just turned sixteen.

He _could_ be a woman. For real. Funny that it's only now I think of this. Everyone refers to Fuhito as 'he', Pia always called him 'he', but he could easily have been a woman all along, and perhaps that night was the only time he showed me his, her true self. A woman masquerading as a man. A mannish woman; a womanly man. Or neither. Or both. Should I mention it to Tseng? _Bold of you to assume he's a man?_

Poor Tseng, he's trying so hard; I don't want to confuddle him. Fuhito's gender isn't important. Although… If they really do believe he's living the high life under an alias somewhere, they ought to be investigating women as well as men. Perhaps I will tell him. At some point. One thing at a time.

Fuhito said, "I hear you've been asking to meet me."

He has a remarkably mellifluous voice. Seductive. Hypnotic. It's his greatest weapon. You could describe it as a light baritone or a low alto, equally a man's voice or a woman's voice, warm and easy on the ear.

I said, "I hear you're looking for an investor in your enterprise."

He said, "Yes. It's a growing concern, I'm proud to say. We need an injection of capital. But I'm afraid my business might prove hostile to your own. We're not overly fond of mako power."

I said, "I can assure you it wouldn't hurt my interests to diversify. I have sufficient funds at my disposal."

Lowering his voice, he asked, "Untraceable?"

I said, "Allow me to coordinate an initial small investment with Pia, and we'll see how it goes."

He said, "What return on your investment are you looking for, Rufus Shinra?"

And I leaned forward and said for his ear alone, "I want my father dead."

Fuhito looked me up and down. He didn't try to hide his contempt. I found that reassuring. I felt he was being honest with me.

He said, "You're a child."

I said, "That's the deal I'm offering. If you're interested, you know how to contact me. It's been a pleasure to meet you, Miss Pickering. May I get you both a glass of champagne?"

I pushed off through the crowds pretending to search for a waiter, and when I returned with the champagne, they were gone, as I'd known they would be.

Tseng and Reno seem to think I don't understand that Fuhito was using me. Do they realise how insulting that is? Of course I understand. The fact that we were mutually using each other was understood between us right from the beginning. He thought I was a child. I thought he was a tool.


	4. Chapter 4

Could this bed _be_ any more uncomfortable? I wish they'd give me some curtains for that two-way mirror. Not knowing who's watching me from the other side – if anyone - is beginning to do my head in. Is that intentional? Possibly. They've made me an exhibit in a zoo -

My door's opening. Tseng! Quick, get up - go sit at the table. Look willing.

He's not taking the other chair. Isn't he going to sit down?

"I can't stay long, Rufus."

"Sit anyway."

He won't sit. He seems a little stressed. "I need your help. I'm coming under pressure to interrogate your friends."

No need to ask who is putting the pressure on. "Don't do that."

"I don't want to do it. Apart from anything else, it would cause a stir, which would draw attention to your absence. We don't want people to start asking questions. And I don't believe your friends could tell us anything useful. Am I right?"

"All the ones who might have been some use to you are gone."

"Yes, just about everybody who's ever got close to Fuhito is either dead, or dying, or in prison." He's reaching into his jacket, producing a sheet of paper, unfolding it to show me a typed list of names, maybe twenty in all. "These are the ones from your social circle that we know were involved with Avalanche. The names in bold are confirmed dead. The rest are missing. We presume they're dead. Or - One way or another, they're not coming back. Nobody's child has ever come back after running away to join Avalanche."

None of the names on the list are kids I knew well. Some I only knew by sight. Three of them used to go to my school. Dropping out to become an eco-warrior was a craze for a while. The lucky ones didn't get as far as Avalanche.

He says, "Is anyone missing? Anyone we don't know about?"

"I don't see Mercedes' name here."

"She was the one who recruited you, wasn't she? That's what she told Charlie."

"Yes."

"What about your other friends? They weren't involved in any way?"

"It wasn't their scene."

"You didn't take any of them into your confidence? Not even Alex?"

"Especially not Alex."

Why are we having this conversation? Tseng can't possibly think I would have deliberately incriminated Alex or any of my friends in my treason. I knew from the start that whatever happened, Dad wouldn't hurt me, but he's already proven that he has no qualms about exacting the ultimate price from my friends.

I don't like the way Tseng is looming over me. I'm going to stand up too.

He says, "So none of your friends had any idea you were conspiring with Avalanche?"

"That's correct. I acted alone. Well, Mercedes and I, we acted together. No one else was involved."

"Hughie Babbington?"

Did he seriously just ask me if _Hughie_ was part of a conspiracy against Shinra? "Come on, Tseng."

"Your father suspects everyone. He wants me to round them all up and bring them in. If you have any way of proving that you and Mercedes Gandara acted alone, you need to share it with me now."

Hold on. Hold on. Is this a ploy? _Tell us what you know or we'll break your friends' kneecaps_? Phrased much more decorously, of course, but still - that's what this boils down, isn't it? He's threatening me. My god, Tseng is threatening me.

He wouldn't actually do it. Dad would never make him do it. They wouldn't dare. Once they start questioning my friends, this whole elaborate cover they've so carefully constructed for me will blow right open like the tissue of lies it is, and that is absolutely the last thing Dad wants to see happen. No, he's bluffing. Let's call him on it.

"You don't need to bring them in, Tseng. Go call on them at home. They'd be pleased to see you. They think of the Turks as old friends, you know. Or how about this? Don't go yourself. Send Rude, he's the girls' favourite. They'd love to spend some time chatting with him. Or send Skeeter. Everybody loves Skeeter! You'll have to fabricate some excuse, but that shouldn't prove too difficult. Wait, I know - tell them Dad's planning a big party for my nineteenth birthday and he's sent you out to collect all their favourite stories about me. Yes, that should work. There you go, problem solved."

He's annoyed. I've succeeded in annoying him. Really, Tseng, you'll have to do better than this.

I return the list to him. He puts it back in his pocket.

He says, "It's very convenient to pin it all on a dead girl, isn't it?"

"You make it sound as if I'm blaming her. Mercedes wasn't responsible for the choices I made. I am."

This isn't what he wants to hear. Although, in another way, it's exactly what he wants to hear. He and Veld have worked hard to mould me into the kind of man who takes responsibility for his actions. But on the other hand, he's being paid to find some way to exonerate me, even though he thinks I fully deserve everything that's happened to me. He knows I acted alone. In his heart, he knows. Because he knows me.

He says, "How did it happen, Rufus?"

"You mean, how did I get involved with Avalanche in the first place?"

"What were you thinking? You're too clever not to have realised from the start what you were getting yourself mixed up in. And how small your chances of success were. Mercedes Gandara may have led you a little way down the path, but at some point you must have made the conscious decision to continue. Why?"

That's a big question. _The_ big question. He thinks he knows why I wanted Dad dead. But why I chose to use Avalanche as the means to my end, and what were the steps that led me on until there was no turning back - these are the things he wants to understand, and not just because Dad is breathing down his neck demanding answers. He wants to know for his own sake.

The other big question - my own personal big question - is this: How much do I want him to know? There are puzzles beneath puzzles here. Secrets wrapped inside enigmas. I don't necessarily want him to solve them all.

"I suppose I _could_ tell you. But that would be rather boring for both of us. Wouldn't you prefer to figure it out for yourself? I'm sure can you find the answer if you put some thought into it. Everything you need is in your files. Have a look through them. Consider the evidence. Formulate a hypothesis. Come back and run it past me. If you're right, I'll tell you."

Now, how will he reply?

Oh shit, his PHS is buzzing. What appalling timing. He's flipping it open, checking the message. "I'm running behind schedule." He almost sounds as if he's really sorry to have to leave. Almost. "I must go. I'll be back later." He's already heading for the door.

"Leave my friends alone. They can't tell you anything."

The door shuts behind him.

He'll be back later. _Later_. Such an elastic term. It could mean 'in an hour'. It could mean 'tomorrow'. It could mean 'next week'.

Well. I'll sit here and wait, shall I? Alone with my thoughts once again.

* * *

My friends._ Friend_. A word we use often and unthinkingly. What does it actually mean? Why did my friends consider themselves my friends? Was I _their_ friend? When Tseng calls them my friends, what relationship is he picturing in his mind?

Being my friend (whatever that means) – or rather, being Rufus Shinra's friend has always been a highly sought-after position.

Gaining admission to the magic circle isn't easy. _I don't want him making the wrong sort of friends_, said Dad. You have to have the right qualifications. Your Dad has to play golf with my Dad. Your mother was my mother's bridesmaid. _Birds of a feather flock together_, Aunt Pansy would say.

Before I met Mercedes, in the summer of the year I turned fourteen, my group of friends was made up of people I'd known all my life. _Let's have some of your nice little friends round to tea_. Our nannies brought us to each other's houses for play-dates. We attended the same nursery school, patronised the same dance classes and riding academies; we went to each other's birthday parties, where we fought together on the bouncy castles, ate too much cake and jelly, formed our various alliances and rivalries.

Not everybody in that first draft made the final cut. That one little girl I was desperately keen on - Bridie? Bridget? Yes, Boss-eyed Bridget. Her wild eye enthralled me. She could look in two directions at once, like a lizard. I kept hitting her to make her turn those eyes on me, and one day I suppose she couldn't take it any longer: she sank her teeth into my forearm, drawing blood. In the right light the scar is still visible. The red blood welling up from the tooth marks amazed me: how bright it was, what a contrast it made with my pale skin. Poor nanny nearly fainted. Dad sacked her when he found out.

The powers that be expelled Bridget the Biter from my orbit; I've never seen her since. Where does she go to school now? She must be heading off to uni soon. Does she tell that little anecdote, is it her party piece? _Who wants to hear about the time I bit Rufus Shinra?_

We were so pure when we were little. Our ambitions were wholesome: dustman (Alex), veterinarian (me), astronaut (Johnny), doctor (Kitty). Connie Hurda-Lainen wanted to be a cook. Her family chef more or less raised her. The Hurda-Lainens are important busy people. They made their money in protectives - bangles, bracers, headgear; _Powers Protectives_. After they sold that business to my grandfather, they bought land, and Connie's father went into the army. Brigadier Anthony Hurda-Lainen, Heidegger's number three. Connie's mother used to be a model. She's good at wearing clothes.

Connie was a fantastic cook. At fourteen years old she could cook from scratch a meal as good as anything they'd serve at the Constellation. Whenever we were down from Penscombe she'd invite us round so she could feed us. Her parents always seemed to be out. We'd sit around the table in the servant's kitchen in her basement, Alex and Hughie and Johnny, Allegra and Kitty and Lola: the inner circle, my intimate friends, and I.

Connie loathed Penscombe. She planned to run away the moment she turned sixteen. She was going to head for Costa del Sol, find a job in a restaurant, and spend the rest of her life in bliss surfing and cooking. Did we believe her? Did we believe _in_ her? We acted as if we did. We all made donations to the running-away stash she kept in her sock drawer. Her father was old-school and didn't give her an allowance.

The summer before her sixteenth birthday, Connie fell off her parent's yacht and drowned. They said it was an accident. None of us had lost somebody before. Well, except for pets and grandparents, which is all in the natural order of things. And my mother, of course, mustn't forget her. That's a loss which is hard to quantify. Can you miss what you never had?

I lost Alex six months ago. At my cousin Gus Lomo's twenty-fifth birthday party he got so drunk he passed out in a back bedroom and choked on his own vomit. Tseng took me to the funeral. Dad was busy.

Johnny Casarini, my reliable prop forward, my tank, the first of us to turn eighteen, went down to the recruiting office on the morning of his birthday and enlisted in SOLDIER. I counter-signed the application personally. His mother was so beside herself she flew off and interrupted Dad in the middle of his golf game, begging him to intervene. So that's the Casarinis crossed off our guest list.

Allegra Fortescue's mother was one of my mother's bridesmaids. Hughie Babbington's mother was another. She's a pediatric heart surgeon. His old man's an art historian. His sister Caroline runs an art gallery. In the olden days, before the war of the Three Queens, when great-grandfather Rufus was selling his brooms from door to door, Hughie's great-grandparents reigned supreme as lords of the manor on their vast estates south of Junon. The dawn of mako power ushered in a more enlightened, meritocratic age, for which people of the Babbington's ilk have never forgiven us; we have dispensed with such baubles as titles, but his family still owns thousands and thousands of ancestral acres producing wine, olives, mulberries, apricots. Their old manor house is one of the loveliest places I've ever been. When his parents die, I might buy it from him.

The last time I saw Hughie - only a month ago? - it was eleven o'clock in the morning and we were supposed to be playing tennis. We never left the clubhouse bar. He asked me why Cissnei wasn't my bodyguard any more. Cissnei's been off-site for at least a year; I don't know where she's gone or what she's doing. I told Hughie she'd been promoted to better things. He said, "How's Reno these days? I keep expecting to run into him down at the Honey Bee. Man, that was a great night, wasn't it? One of my happiest memories. It's too bad you had to leave early. Hey, Rufe - did I ever tell you Caroline use to have a thing for Reno? Back when - must have been back when we were in the second form."

"You've told me that many times, Hughie."

"Have I?"

"Did anything ever come of it? I would have thought she was out of his league by some considerable margin."

Hughie giggled salaciously. "Don't let that prim exterior fool you. Caroline loves to get down and dirty. A slum boy is right up her back alley, if you know what I mean. And Reno, he's - authentic." Hughie sighed. "_Authentic_. Fuck it. That just slipped out. Remember _authentic_, Rufe?" He sighed again, more heavily this time. "I miss Alex."

_Authentic_ was a concept Alex introduced to us, back in the spring of the third form. It filled a lexical vacancy we hadn't realised existed, and soon it was our highest form of praise. "Oh my god, they are so authentic," we'd say of someone who seemed real and unpretentious. Our standards were exacting. You couldn't _try_ to be authentic. That would make you a pseud. If you were neither authentic nor a pseud, then you were a chooky, a fluffy-headed little chocobo chick identical to a million other yellow chicks and destined for a life of tragic conformity to the herd. _Chooky_ was Alex's coinage too.

My friends and I aspired to be authentic. We hoped we were. We feared we weren't.

"_You_ don't have to worry," Allegra informed me. "You couldn't be un-authentic even if you tried. It's really not fair."

"How so, Legs?"

"Well. You know. Because. You're 'Rufus Shinra'. The one and only."  
"The ego defines itself," said Kitty. "The one who is above envy is above judgement."

Connie's contribution remains my favourite: "Rufe, you're the cheese that stands alone."

Being a pseud was bad, but being a chooky was total humiliation. According to Allegra and Connie, ninety-five per cent of the girls in our form were chookies. Chookies were all about the brand. Their netball coach, Mrs Vandermeer, was a total chooky. Our history teacher was authentic. Antique, but authentic; old people had a distinct advantage in the authenticity stakes. Joining a fan club was chooky. Genesis was a pseud but Angeal was authentic. Opinion divided on Sephiroth. My friends agreed that all my Turks were authentic.

They were wrong, alas. Tseng isn't authentic. This painful truth I kept to myself. I wished him to be authentic; I wanted it for his own sake. Tseng has no idea he's inauthentic. He's spent his entire life moulding himself into the perfect Turk in order to make Veld happy. On the other hand, at least he's not a pseud. Pseuds know they're faking it. Lazard, now – he was the quintessential pseud. As Veld well knew.

My first encounter with Mercedes Gandara took place during the height of our obsession with authenticity. That's not an excuse, merely an explanation. It was early August, the summer between the third and the fourth forms. Hot days and warm nights. I'd spent the morning at shooting practice with Rosalind, the afternoon lounging around the pool at Allegra's parents' country place, about forty minutes flying time from Midgar. When I came home, the freshly-brushed suit laid out on my bed reminded me Dad was taking me out for dinner. I needed to be ready at seven o'clock sharp.

The suit was a rich colour, like an over-ripe berry or a fresh bruise, halfway between red and purple. Dad loves those colours. Someone must have told him they bring out the blue of his eyes. My mother, perhaps. The shirt chosen to go with it was pale blue cotton, the tie a dark blue silk.

To be fair, I don't think he was deliberately, consciously, dressing me up as a carbon copy of himself. He liked those colours, he liked the figure-hugging cut and the velvety nap, and so he assumed I would like them too. And he wasn't wrong; I didn't dislike them. Until I met Mercedes I didn't really think much about my clothes. I wore whatever my valet put out for me. The fact that I remember this one particular suit so vividly is entirely Mercedes' fault.

At seven o'clock on the dot I got into the back of the limousine and settled down to wait for Dad. Whichever Turk was with us, it wasn't Tseng. He must have been out of Midgar.

Forty-five minutes later, Dad showed up wearing a suit identical to my own, same shirt, same tie. I thought nothing of it. Dressing alike was our little family tradition. He wasn't so fat then. Once the limo was on the move I asked him where we were going. He told me a business contact from Forland had moved to Midgar and was throwing a house-warming party. _Gandara Electrical Industries. _Refrigerators, washing machines, typewriters, and now computers. They had a daughter my age, he said. She'd be joining me at Penscombe in September.

In less than ten minutes we were outside their house, a typical Sector Three brownstone mansion over four floors, deeper than it was wide. The place was packed. We were as late as only the Shinra family can get away with being. Dad's chauffeur carried our house-warming present in and put it on the gift table, where it was immediately lost among several hundred others. A butler led us through the crowd to meet our hosts.

Mrs Gandara was definitely chooky, but in a motherly way, so I could not utterly condemn her. Mr Gandara I suspected of pseudality, although that might have been a temporary effect produced by too-close proximity to my old man. Hardly anyone knows how to be themselves around him. Their daughter Pia looked chooky too: pink satin gown, double row of pearls. Pia was taller than me by at least four inches - I hadn't yet gone through my growth spurt - and I was relieved to learn she was not the daughter destined to be my classmate. "Now where can Mercedes have got to?" said Mrs Gandara, gazing around rather vaguely.

Dad strolled off to schmooze and be schmoozed. I surveyed the room. The company was made up of all the usual suspects. Nothing new to be expected from them, nothing exciting. Over by some potted palms our history teacher stood talking to Hughie's dad, but at the time I thought nothing of it. Edgar Braska was one of us. His grandmother had been a Casarini. He'd taught Hughie's dad at Bovadem, before Dad shut down those dreaming spires and moved the engineering and maths departments to Junon, the science departments to Midgar.

The true significance of Dr Braska's presence at the Gandara's housewarming would only become apparent to me some months later.

Hughie and Alex came to claim me. Alex gave me a blackcurrant juice that Hughie topped up with rum from his pocket flask. The combination tasted like cough medicine. I drank it to be polite. We debated how to pass the time until dinner. In his other pocket Hughie had a pack of cards; Alex had some tranqs and some razor weed, but I didn't think things had reached such desperate straits yet. And the spotlight was always on me. The Turks' eyes were always on me. It wasn't fair to Hughie and Alex. So they left me in order to go roll some joints, promising they'd be back soon. I threw the rest of my drink into a nearby planter and turned around, and there she was. I knew immediately that she'd been standing there watching me for some time.

"Nice suit," she said. "Snazzy."

I liked her straight away. I liked her for not trying to ingratiate herself. I liked her snark. I liked the fact that she had dyed her hair green. Short and uneven, it looked like a work of failed topiary, as if someone had hacked at it with a pair of blunt scissors (later, I learned this was exactly what she had done). I liked her rosy brown skin and her big bright eyes and her make-up: purple lipstick, gold eyeshadow, chipped glittery nail varnish.

Mercedes had clearly taken immense pains over her appearance in order to look - well, really quite dreadful. She was wearing what looked like a school uniform kilt, red and green, not my school's colours, and not rolled up to the tops of her thighs the way Kitty and Allegra wore their kilts. Mercedes' kilt just sort of hung off her skinny hips. She'd paired it, if _pair_ is the right word, with a custard yellow cable-knit jumper unravelling at the elbows, lacy tights, and what looked like SOLDIER surplus jack boots.

I think I fell a little in love right there and then. Well, no; perhaps love is too strong a word. Infatuation. How else can I explain it? To my fourteen-year-old eyes, she was the most authentic person I'd ever seen in the whole of my entire life.

"Hullo," I said, holding out my hand, because whatever else they can accuse me of, no one can say I lack good manners. "I'm Rufus Shinra."

She sniggered. "No kidding. The little Prez. I grew out of matching outfits when I was, like, two years old."

That hurt. It literally, physically, hurt, as though she'd taken my heart and pinched it. It hurt because she was right and as soon as she said it, I could see she was right: I could see what I looked like. I looked _chooky_.

Mercedes was a girl whose imagination outran her mouth. She could be savage, but she wasn't mean. When she realised she'd hurt me, she said, "Hey, it could be worse. At least your Dad picked something that suits you. That shade of mulberry makes your eyes look really blue. They are, aren't they? I mean, they're _really_ blue. Like, cornflower blue. I always assumed the photos were touched up - Oh no, oh, _shit_ \- "

That wasn't aimed at me. She'd seen her mother bearing down on us. "Mercedes, dear gods, what are you wearing?" Mrs Gandara didn't sound angry, though. She sounded the way Tseng sounds when I've made extra work for him. _What have you done now, you exasperating child?_

"Poor mummy, have you gone blind? Would you like me to describe it to you?"

"You know I expected you to wear your pink Tadzio. I had Jennie press it specially for you."

"Pia's in pink. I like this."

"But you girls look so cute when you match. This bag lady costume - It's embarrassing_._"

"But mummy, I live to embarrass my parents in front of all their friends. Anyway," she added, "Rufus Shinra likes what I'm wearing. He thinks it looks imaginative and - and original. Don't you, Rufus Shinra?"

I don't know why she trusted me to be on her side. But I was. On her side. Already. I said, "She looks lovely, Mrs Gandara. Really - authentic."

Mercedes triumphant! "See?"

Mrs Gandara gave me a look I can't describe. A motherly look? How would I know? The entire situation felt as if some subtext was running through it in a language I didn't speak. Mrs Gandara kept her eyes on me while she said to Mercedes, "Rufus Shinra is a gentleman. You ought to be ashamed of yourself, putting our guest on the spot like that. Now you get yourself up those stairs, young lady, and dress yourself in a manner a little more appropriate to this occasion."

"Not the pink Tadzio."

"It doesn't have to be the Tadzio. We can compromise."

Mercedes looked at me. This look I had no trouble reading. It was the equivalent of a prisoner alone in a cell banging on a pipe with her rusty spoon, waiting for the other prisoner in his equal lonely cell to answer. I didn't know how to respond. I didn't know what she wanted from me. So I nodded.

"All right," said Mercedes. "I'm not doing it for _you_, though, mummy. I'm doing it because I'm polite."

Off she went in her clumpy boots, long, swinging strides, her arms and legs out of proportion to her body. They'd grown first and were waiting for the rest of her to catch up.

I might have heard her mother sigh. Then she asked me if I'd like Pia to show me their games room.

Later that night, at dinner, I saw Mercedes at the other end of the table wearing jeans and a red leather jacket. We didn't get another chance to speak.

Every day for the rest of that summer I thought about her. I kept hoping we'd bump into each other, but we never did. No sign of her at the tennis club. Maybe she didn't play tennis? I accepted more than the usual number of party invitations, reckoning that by the law of averages our paths were bound to cross sooner or later. No such luck. When Dad told me he was playing a round of golf with her father, I did something I'd never done before and invited myself to lunch at the clubhouse. Mr Gandara enjoyed talking business, but when it came to his family he wasn't very forthcoming. Either that, or he had no idea what was going on in his children's lives.

I said, "Mercedes is coming to Penscombe next term, isn't she? Do you know which house she'll be in?"

"I leave all that to her mother," he said.

I didn't dare press him further. Not with Dad sitting right beside me, radar pinging. He was always asking me whether I had a girlfriend yet.

On the first day of the Kalm Festival I ran into Pia Gandara at the racetrack. She and her collective of like-minded vegetarian student types were setting up a booth outside the entrance to the members' enclosure. I asked if I could go over to see what they were promoting. Reno sloped along behind me, keeping his distance, never taking his eye off me. They call this giving me space.

The banners flapping round the booth read _League Against Cruel Sports_ and _Sahagin Rights_ and _Fly Free Foundation_. "Chocobos can't fly," I pointed out.

Pia had the grace to laugh. "Is that your guard hound, Rufus? She's a gorgeous girl. What's her name?"

We stood and chatted for a while. Pia was in her second year at Junon Polytechnic, studying electrical engineering. When she graduated, she wanted to work in our Weapons Department for a while, until her father retired and she took over the business. So far, so chooky. The animal-lib interests were, to my mind, just another kind of fan club. She told me she was six years older than Mercedes. This gave me the opening I was waiting for. "How is Mercedes?" I asked

"Grounded", said Pia.

The night after the house-warming, she'd been caught on the roof of their Sector Two townhouse, smoking razor-weed and feeding a stray cat. Their father hated cats. He hated all animals, apparently. So she was under house arrest until school started.

Having extracted the information I desired, I walked away from that conversation feeling positively Turk-ish. Mission accomplished! Reno's sharp eyes noticed the bounce in my step. "She's way too old for you, champ."

"Mind your own business."

"Minding you _is_ my business. I'm telling you this for your own good. That Gandara chick's a dyke, everyone knows it. Sorry to disappoint you."

He wasn't sorry. And he wasn't getting any reaction out of me.

"Hey," he said, "You do know what a dyke is, right? A chick who fucks other chicks. Man, how do they even do that? Without, you know, _equipment_. Can you even picture it?"

I quickened my pace, but I couldn't shake off the sound of his laughter.

Someone's opening my door. Suppertime already? Who's on duty today, I wonder?

Ah - It's Hunter. Good. This won't be entirely boring.

She loathes me, but I rather like her. Such a perfect storm of fury and resentment behind that lovely face. That's not all due to me; she came to us that way.

"Hunter, you again? Did you switch with someone? I thought it wasn't your turn again until tomorrow."

What a glorious scowl. Her life is so unfair. Everybody's out to get her.

What's on my tray? Fish and chips, peas and ketchup, wrapped in yesterday's newspaper. It's steaming hot. Must be from that chip shop on the corner of First and Warehouse that Tys speaks of so highly. I've always wanted to try it.

"Did you make this yourself, Hunter? You're really spoiling me."

Here it comes. Don't tense up. It'll hurt more.

The way she's hitting me reminds me of the time I saw Tseng in the gym, taking out his frustrations on the punching bag. She's being careful to avoid my head -

Stopping already? She has so much self-control. She wants to kill me, but she's not allowed. My shoulders are going to be stiff later.

"Thank you, Hunter."

She's squinting at me, breathing hard. "What? What for?"

"For thinking I'm worth it."

What will she do? Hit me again?

No. Shove my food off the table. Like a scorned cat. Exit, fur bristling, tail lashing. The door closes itself behind her.

She'll complain about me to whoever will listen. _Can you believe what he said? What the fuck is wrong with him?_

Dear Hunter, believe me, you are not the first person to ask that question.

* * *

_Author's note:_

_f.y.i. Rufus' friends mentioned in this chapter are Hughie Babbington, Johnny Casarini, Alex Leigh, Allegra Fortescue, Kitty Tredescant, Connie Hurda-Lainen, and Lola Capodimonti. _

_Caroline Babbington, Hughie's sister, went on a date with Reno once. It didn't go well. That story is told in my fic "The Misunderstanding" over on A O 3. _


	5. Chapter 5

He promised he would come back later. "I'll see you later," is what he said. When people say "I'll see you later," it means later _the same day_. If you're not planning to return the same day you don't say "I'll see you later", you say, "I'll see you tomorrow" or "I'll see you next week." He definitely said, "I'll see you later." And that was days ago. Where is he? I would make tally-marks on the wall if I had any idea when one day ends and another begins. Did they never have a clock in here, or did they take it away when I moved in? Another one of their little mind-fucks.

Is it still May? Or have we moved on to June?

If I were at Penscombe right now I'd be getting ready to take my final exams. My friends and I would be sitting round one of those big old oak tables in High Leckie, sharing revision notes and passing round the contraband bags of sweets Alex's mother sent to him, the ones his Dad's company made: Leigh's Fruit Jellies; Leigh's Luscious Licorice; Leigh's Strawberry Bombs and Sour Tonberries. No eating allowed in the library! Your sticky fingers will stain the pages! The afternoon light would be falling through the tall windows, the smell of slightly burnt toast would let us know the scouts were putting up tea, and Midgar would seem a long way away. Not only in distance. Another time. A different, older world, and in many ways a better one.

If Dad hadn't forced me to leave school, maybe none of this would have happened.

Dad was the first Shinra to go Penscombe. In his day it was a boys' school. He didn't stay long; he didn't like it. _Fusty damn place __full of useless snobs_. He hadn't intended to send me there. His first choice for my secondary school was the military academy he'd founded in Junon. All my friends were going to Penscombe, but he didn't think that mattered. You'll make new friends, he said. The Academy will toughen you up, my lad.

My shame at my inability to get excited by the prospect of making new friends and toughening myself up only compounded my misery. Dad was right; Dad was always right. Why couldn't I will myself to be stronger? Why was I such a capital-L Loser?

The moment Aunt Pansy got wind of Dad's plans, she stormed his citadel and put her foot down. "How _dare_ you think of turning Patricia's precious boy into some tawdry mascot for that academy of yours, Julius? I absolutely will not allow it. Poor Patricia, she must be turning in her grave. That academy would ruin him. He'd be surrounded by sycophants. He'd pick up vulgar habits and a bourgeois mindset. Not, I think you'll agree, the best preparation for his future as president of this company. Rufus needs to be with his own kind. Palmer boys have always been Penscombites and always will be. I trust I make myself clear?"

Good old Aunt Pansy. Stays out of my life for months on end, then sweeps into town, buys me lunch, assassinates my father's character, gives me racing tips, and sweeps out again. The tips are always on the money, too. Aunt Pansy knows her birds.

That's two favours I owe her. First she gave me Dark Nation ("children need animals, Julius") and then she gave me Penscombe.

At Penscombe, portraits of my mother's ancestors can be found lining the old wood-panelled corridors and the high walls of the dining Commons, part of that elite gallery of men of destiny - generals, philosophers, politicians, merchant-venturers - who had once been boys like us; whose collective fame was meant to fire our ambitions. If ever I was in danger of succumbing to the delusion that I'm the most important person who's ever lived - which was, I suspect, the fate Aunt Pansy feared lay in store for me at the Junon military academy - Penscombe knocked that right out of my head. In every classroom, at every meal, the great men of the past looked down on us. What made us think we were capable of filling their shoes? Even if we did manage to earn ourselves a bit of fame, rack up a few accomplishments, life was fleeting and our hour would soon pass; we would go where they had gone, reduced to portraits on a wall, and new boys and girls would take our places.

There's a painting of Uncle Roland hanging in Commons too, a Joan Mowbray. He gifted it to Penscombe on Founder's Day the year before I left. It's an interesting work, though it doesn't look much like him. A symphony in yellow.

Mercedes used to call it _still life with jaundice. _

First day of the first term of the fourth form: trunk in the helicopter, tuck-box in the helicopter, Dark Nation in the helicopter, me in the helicopter, Turks in the seats beside me, and Veld, my fake fill-in father, in the cockpit, running the show. Dad couldn't come. Calendar clash, vital meeting, Wutai envoy, can't miss it. The Director of the Turks should have been at that meeting too, but somehow, for Veld, escorting me to school was more important.

Was I supposed to be grateful? His presence didn't make up for the lack of Dad. Did he think I wasn't used to Dad's absence by that point? Dad never really existed anyway. I made him up. My two fathers: imaginary Dad, all-powerful, all-knowing, all-benevolent, and utterly terrifying; and substitute Dad, keenly pursuing his own agenda. And me trapped between them. Why couldn't they leave me alone? All I wanted was to get back to school as fast as possible. Back to my real life. I wanted to see my friends. To see Mercedes again, and find out if she really was what I thought she could be.

Veld knew how I felt about school, so how could Dad not have known? I loved school. I _loved_ school. My dream would have been to stay at school all year round, no exeats, no holidays. We Penscombites nicknamed it _Penscombe Penitentiary_, but it never felt like a prison to me. No Turks monitoring my every move, no PSM except the ones at the gates, no key cards, no bomb scares, no one sticking a camera in my face flash flash flash. Of course every member of the staff and faculty had been vetted by Veld, and of course they all reported to him when required to do so, but I never committed any offenses or broke any rules worth getting excited about. I'm not stupid.

I loved everything about Penscombe. I loved my house. I loved my teams. I loved my classes. Maybe I didn't _love_ the beaks, but I did respect them. I loved their classes; I loved learning. It felt effortless. I have a retentive memory; understanding comes easily to me. It's the same with chess. If I'm going to see the solution at all, I'll see it straight away. I don't always.

_All As again, eh, clever clogs? Take a look at his report card, Veld. The boy must get his brains from his mother, don't you think?_

I have my doubts. She married my father, after all. Is that the kind of thing an intelligent woman would do?

Dad has a saying he likes to quote ad nauseam: A students work for B students at companies run by C students. Dad never finished school. He left when he was fifteen to work in his father's business. That was before the war, the Great War; the war that changed everything, according to Dr Braska. Dad believes there's such a thing as being 'too clever'. And when someone's achieved as much as he has, it's difficult to argue against his logic. Art, poetry, music, literature - he thinks that sort of frippery is for women. And queers. A man only needs to be 'smart enough'. Dad used to say that about Lazard: "He's smart enough." Until it became obvious that he wasn't.

My third form maths teacher Ms Forbes unconsciously encapsulated Dad's attitude one day when she handed back an algebra test, and without stopping to consider her words told me, "This is excellent work. You have a first class mind, Rufus. You could have been a real mathematician."

_Could have been_. To a thirteen-year-old boy.

There was only one thing I could be, and it wasn't a vet or an astronaut or a mathematician. My fate was sealed the day I was born - no, the very moment I was conceived. In the fullness of time, I would become my father, but until that day came, Penscombe represented, for me, glorious, glorious, glorious freedom.

Veld parked the helicopter on the football pitch and the four of us headed for Fortitude House: me, my substitute Dad, his Turk, and Dark Nation. Veld and the Turk went upstairs to inspect the set I'd be sharing with Alex. It was up on the fourth floor, with no jutting windowsills to give kidnappers easy access, no drainpipes or trees for assassins to climb. It did have a view of the Junon mountains, which I'd asked for. Alex hadn't yet arrived, so while the Department of Administrative Research combed through my boarding house for potential security risks, Dark Nation and I waited outside for my friend. Other Forties and their parents went in and out – new bugs, terrible twos, tall hairy fifth formers – and greeted me as they passed, but kept their distance from my guard hound.

Until I came to Penscombe, the rule against pets had been strictly enforced without fear or favour. Veld compelled Dr Wiley to bend the rule for Dark Nation. I didn't ask him to do it, though I was glad he did. Dad didn't ask him either. Veld did it because he knew she would keep me safe.

The scouts arrived with my trunks and I sent them upstairs. It was late afternoon; the sun was in my face. I put a hand up to shade my eyes and looked down the long sweep of lawn to College House and the car park. Seeking Alex, I found Mercedes.

She was with Pia, the two of them heading towards Minerva house, Pia tall and graceful, Mercedes all arms and legs. I almost called out to her before I remembered Veld and the Turk would hear me. They knew all my other friends. I wanted Mercedes to remain my secret.

I liked the way she walked. I liked everything about her. She looked beautiful to me, haloed by the glow of the afternoon sun. My heart pounded with delight. This is love, I thought. I'm in love with her. I'm in love with a girl. Thank god.

That night after lights out Alex came into my bed. This was something we'd started doing the previous term. He initiated it. I allowed it. Dad always used to say I'm too passive. _Where's your gumption, boy? Little scaredy-cat. Speak up! Louder!_

"This is gay," I said. "Stop it."

Alex said, "We don't have to do anything if you don't want. We can just lie together. I like being close to you."

I pushed him away. 'Stop acting like such a faggot, Alex."

There are many things I regret. Trying to kill my father isn't one of them.

.

The next day, third period, I walked into Dr Braska's history classroom and found her sitting at a desk in the very back row, disguised as a total chooky: regulation school uniform, tie, knee socks, the works. Her earrings and studs had been removed (school rules), her nail varnish had been removed (school rules), she wore no make-up (school rules), and she'd visited a professional hairdresser at some point between our last meeting and this one: her hair had been restored to its natural brown. Before I arrived she'd been staring sullenly out the window, but when she saw me, she smiled.

In some ways it was the best moment of my life: the moment when I was most purely, completely, confidently normal.

I took the seat beside her. We would keep those seats for the rest of the term. "You scrub up nicely, Gandara."

"Sssh, I'm under cover. Don't blow it for me. In real life, I'm a Wuteng spy. "

I knew this game. "In real life," I said, "I'm a Turk."

"Curses! My nemesis."

Dr Braska walked in, carrying an armful of textbooks.

"And there he is," she murmured, sinking down in her seat. "Don Dinero, the double-agent I've been sent to kill."

"What a peculiar coincidence," I murmured back, sinking down likewise so that our eyes were level. "Maybe we should work together?"

"Sit up, Shinra," said Dr Braska.

Is this what Tseng wants to know? How it started? We were kids. We were playing.

Throughout that term, in every history class, we played that game. Mercedes spun the narrative and I fleshed out the supporting details. Don Dinero, a notorious weapons smuggler who had double-crossed both Wutai and Shinra, had been forced to adopt the persona of an elderly schoolmaster after a painful operation in which his face had been completely reconstructed. She was a ninja with a talent for disguise; I was a corporate assassin with a gift for cracking codes. I did, in fact, invent a code for us, which I used for writing my history notes. I tried to teach her how to use it, but Mercedes had no head for that kind of thing.

My old friends didn't know what to make of this new friendship.

"That girl is completely doo-lally," said Lola. "I mean, no offense, Rufe, I know you like her for some inexplicable reason, but she is an utter space cadet. She's flunked out of three schools already."

"She's got nice legs," said Johnny.

"That's not what I heard," said Hughie to Lola. "She didn't flunk out. She was expelled."

"Sarah Smee told me something," said Allegra. "Mercedes Gandara is _definitely_ not a virgin. No, but listen. You know why she was grounded all summer, right? Her mother _caught_ her. You know. Knickers down. Bottoms up. _Doing it_. With her tennis coach. You know, the one with the buzzcut. Harvey. He's got to be at least _twenty-five_."

"Ugh," said Connie.

"I heard she was shagging her orthodontist," said Hughie.

"Come on, you guys, stop spreading rumours," said Alex, taking what should have been my line. "None of that's true. She was grounded for smoking. Her dad is strict."

Lola turned to me. "Are you having sex with her?"

I nearly gagged. "What? No!"

With the benefit of hindsight, my revulsion at the thought of being touched by Mercedes the way Alex and I had - so briefly - touched each other should have opened my eyes at least a little bit. But there are none so blind as those who will not see. I told myself my love for Mercedes transcended the physical. It was a spiritual union, a meeting of soulmates.

"Then I just don't get it," said Lola. "I just don't see the appeal."

"Rufe can be friends with whoever he wants," declared my loyal Alex. He was too good for me. Too good for this world...

They would have made room for her if I'd insisted. But Mercedes didn't want to be friends with my friends. She didn't care about being liked. There were things out in the big world she needed to do, a real life out there to be lived, and she wasn't planning on sticking around in a mouldy penitentiary like Penscombe long enough to need friends. Just for her nemesis, though, she would make an exception. Just until our mission was complete.

Inside Dr Braska's class we sat practically hip to hip. Braska had to keep telling us off for whispering to each other. Outside his class, we hardly spoke. In the dining hall she sat at Minerva table and I sat with the Forties. She didn't join any clubs. Whenever I saw her around the school she was busy with something solitary, sketching, reading, listening to music. I was her only friend. I felt anointed. Chosen.

Was I chosen? Or, let's say, targeted? It is possible. But unless Tseng catches Fuhito, I'll never know now.

* * *

_Author's note: f.y.i., "Uncle Roland" is Palmer. "Aunt Pansy" is his sister, the chocobo trainer. Rufus' mother was their cousin. _


	6. Chapter 6

Tseng's here! At last!

"You took your time, Commander."

He doesn't like it when I call him _Commander_. Veld is the Commander; Tseng, in his heart, is Mr Second-in-Command. He can give orders, of course he can, he does it all day long. But he's happiest following them. That's why he's inauthentic and doesn't know it. He thinks of himself as a natural number two, but he wasn't born like this, he was _moulded_ to be like this: Veld's eternal deputy. He's a thinker, he's a problem-solver; he's a savage; he could have been _anything_, and this, this cautious, diligent Turk taking the seat opposite me, this is what Veld made of him, this is what Veld _reduced_ him to, and it just - enrages me, sometimes.

Perhaps it's not too late. Veld's gone now. That's a start.

What's this he's laying on the table? A clear plastic wallet, protection against dirty fingers, and inside it a single-sided, brightly-coloured A4 promotional flyer. Well done, Tseng. Exhibit B. Recovered, I'm sure, from the shelf of files labelled 'Rufus aged 14'. I know what this flyer is and he knows that I know but he's pushing it across to me anyway, as if I needed to take a closer look. "You recognise this, don't you?"

Indeed I do. Cheap thin brownish paper, cheap smudged ink - dirty green, dirty blue, mako colours, swirling around a shocking red centre designed to hook and reel in any passing eye. The deformed fetus in the photo, slick and slimy, looks as if it's just been aborted. Above it and below, a few words in scare font. _Mako is Poison. Shinra Kills. _

He says, "It was Mercedes Gandara, wasn't it? She was the one who spread these flyers round your school."

"Yes. You pinned the crime on the wrong man."

"He may not have been guilty of these flyers, but he was guilty of the book."

_Guilty of the book_. What a beautiful turn of phrase. Fit for a tombstone. I must remember it.

He says, "Were you aware that Mercedes Gandara was the one bringing Avalanche propaganda into Penscombe?"

"Not the first time it happened."

"There was a second time?"

Oh, his face! I've surprised him with something he didn't know. I live for such moments. "Yes, there was a second time."

"When?"

My power in this dialogue is that I have all the answers. His power is that he can walk away whenever he likes. "We'll get to that. Let's confine ourselves to the first time, for now. What did you want to ask me about this flyer?"

"You weren't collaborating with her?"

"I told you, No."

"What about the second time?"

He's so impatient. "Ask me something about _this_ flyer, Tseng."

Thinking, thinking… Come on, Tseng, there are so many things you could ask.

He says, "What was your reaction when you saw it?"

"My very first thought was that it meant trouble for me."

"The image didn't disturb you?"

"To be honest, I thought it was gross but interesting."

"And the anti-Shinra propaganda?"

"What about it? Where is the lie? Mako is poison; we've never tried to hide that fact. We put warning signs around the reactors. Don't fall in! You'll die! The high incidence of birth defects in children living close to reactor outflow pipes is an open secret. And Shinra does kill. Kalm, Banora, Nibelheim, Corel… Need I go on?"

"None of those had happened when you were in the fourth form."

"Kalm had."

"You didn't know about Kalm then."

"Is that what Veld told you? That what happened at Kalm is a secret? Don't delude yourself. We may not have known all the details to which I'm now privy, but we knew something bad had happened at Kalm and that Shinra was in some way responsible. We knew it wasn't something we could discuss openly or ask our teachers about. You see, Tseng, this is why I keep telling you cover-ups are a pointless waste of money. The truth always gets out. Always."

Is there anything he'd like to say in reply? Yes? No? Nothing? All right then, I'll go on.

"What's more, we were right in the middle of the Wutai War when I was in the fourth form. Sephiroth's image was on the front page of every newspaper. My old man's organic killing machine. This company used to be a weapons company. We still have a weapons department. Killing is our business. I'm sorry, is that something else I wasn't supposed to know?"

I've made him look sad. Cheer up, Tseng. The boy you're feeling sad for is long, long gone.

"Is that why you did it, Rufus?"

He has no idea his eyes are urging me to say Yes. What a beautiful, admirable reason that would be.

If only - No, don't go there.

I could give him a shrug and let him read into it whatever he liked.

No, that would be a lie.

"Did you know, Tseng, the reason Lazard never took off those white gloves is because he had webs between his fingers? He grew up in the slums, didn't he, near an outflow pipe. Mako duck! Quack quack!"

"How do you know that?"

"Oh my god, you mean it's true?"

Oh Tseng. Sad face. He's disappointed in me again.

I really don't believe I'm getting the full benefit of his famous interrogation technique here.

He's shifting his weight, moving the chair slightly, looking for a different angle from which to approach me. Go on. Take me by surprise.

"Do you remember the date these flyers appeared in your school, Rufus?"

"How could I forget? It was two days after the long October exeat."

"Did you know Mercedes and her family spent that exeat week in Cosmo Canyon?"

"Yes, she told me they were going there."

"Did she tell you why?"

"She said Pia had signed up for some sort of retreat run by a man she'd met through the Vegetarian Society, and she and her mother were going along for the ride. She said she'd always wanted to see the Canyon."

"Did she say who this man was? Did she mention a name?"

"No, but I assume it was Fuhito, and I imagine you do too. It does seem like the likeliest place for them to have met. Are you really only figuring this out now? I would have thought you'd been through the Cosmo Canyon guest-lists with a fine-toothed comb years ago."

"Bugenhagen claims they kept no attendance records for Avalanche's Planet Life retreats. I can't decide whether he was colluding or merely turning a blind eye. The Canyon gets thousands of visitors every year, we can't investigate them all. Pia and Mercedes Gandara were not persons of interest to us then. Was she your girlfriend?"

Ah. Wasn't expecting that. Smoothly done, though. No warning, not the slightest change in look or tone. All the same, I should have seen it coming. It's a question he was bound to ask me sooner or later. What answer shall I give him? The prudent thing might be to say _Yes_.

"If she were my girlfriend, would that explain everything to your satisfaction?"

"Was she?"

"She was a girl. She was my friend."

"Were you intimate?"

"We were close for a while. She had a lot of problems. She was failing all her subjects except art. I tried to help her with her maths."

"Were you having physical relations with her?"

Reno wouldn't have been so coy about it. _So, were you fucking her? _Tseng's trying to keep this clinical. Professional. He has no idea he's making it worse.

"No." That one time doesn't count.

"We know about the incident in the cinema."

Of course they do. Of course they do. How foolish of you, Rufus Shinra, to imagine anything of that nature would be allowed to remain your private business. The President expects a report. They've probably got lists in their files of every single person I've ever allowed to touch me. When I'm President, I'm going to _burn_ those fucking files.

"Did you have sexual relations with her at Penscombe?"

"That would have been against school rules."

"Did you?"

Right. Enough. He's pushed me too far. "What are you going to ask me next? How many times did I fuck her? What positions did we do it in? Are you enjoying this conversation, Tseng? Do you get off on talking to me about sex? Oh my god, you do, don't you? You look forward to these little sessions, just you and me. Don't you? You perv."

It's not just me and him. It never is. He's looking at the mirror. _See what I have to put up with?_

Bad boys must be punished. He's getting up to leave now. He's going to leave me here all by myself to think about what I did wrong.

But first, he must pause for the final word:

"These flyers were bait. Mercedes Gandara was bait, too. She did what she was told to do. She hooked the biggest fish in the pond."

"Or maybe the big fish chewed her up and spat her out. Mercedes is dead. I'm still alive. You really need to stop and think before you come out with these clichés, Commander."


	7. Chapter 7

Tseng forgot to take the flyer with him. I suppose he doesn't need it any more. Unless he left it behind on purpose.

Those bloody fucking flyers. They caused so much trouble, and they achieved absolutely nothing.

A slow Tuesday afternoon in history class. We were watching Dr Braska's slideshow, _One Hundred Years of Urbanisation_. Before Shinra: over-crowding, unemployment, epidemics of crippled children. After Shinra: streetlights, vaccination, education for all. The seat on my left was empty. Mercedes had announced she felt a migraine coming on just as Braskers was starting the presentation. He'd told her to "pop over to the san and see the nurse." We all envied her escape.

As with his presence at their housewarming party, the significance of her absence at this crucial juncture only became apparent to me some months later.

The slideshow was a long one. About twenty minutes in, Hughie asked to be excused. Hughie used to have a weak bladder when he was younger so the teachers could never refuse him permission to go to the loo. He couldn't have been gone more than five minutes, but when he came back it was obvious something had happened. He kept trying to catch my eye.

A knock at the door. Dr Wiley, the headmaster, needed to speak to Dr Braska. The two of them had a little hush-hush confab in the doorway. They both looked at me. Wiley departed in a flap of gown and Dr B closed the door behind him, turning the key.

"Lockdown drill," he announced.

Everybody started talking at once. Hughie took advantage of the confusion to come over to me, taking Mercedes' seat. "Have a look at this, Rufe." He dropped a tightly wadded ball of paper into my hand. "Careful. Don't let Braskers catch you."

Before I'd finished smoothing it out I knew what it was. We'd all seen the graffiti. We'd all seen the propaganda plastered on the Midgar lamp-posts.

"I found it in the bog," said Hughie. "There's dozens of 'em, scattered all over the floor. I bet that's what this lockdown is about. Did you see Wiley's face - ?"

"Shinra, what's that?" Dr Braska's voice sounded like a blade being sharpened. "Give it to me at once.

I did as he asked. He put the leaflet in his own waistcoat pocket without stopping to look at it, saying, "This is not for your eyes."

_Why not? _I thought. _My name is on it._

Braskers wasn't someone you talked back to. He quickly got us under control. "Babbington, return to your seat. Since we find ourselves suffering an enforced incarceration, let us improve the shining hour and continue with the lesson. Miss Tredescant, are you ready to take notes? This next slide shows the lack of sanitation in the fishermen's huts at Junon prior to the modernisation program…"

Eventually the bell rang for the end of the lesson. We could hear the other classes being let out. History4 was not let out. Because of me, because I was in that room, we had to stay in lockdown until nightfall, when Veld arrived from Midgar, bringing with him Rude and Rosalind and two score PSM from the Garuda battalion. My classmates cheered when they saw the lights of the big troop carrier approaching. We were all very hungry. Veld himself came to release us. Everyone else rushed off to Commons for their grub. Veld, Rude and Rosalind escorted me across the Sward to Dr Wiley's private study, where I was compelled to listen while our headmaster, whom all the students both feared and respected, apologised to me for the insult to my family's good name and assured me the culprit would be swiftly found and severely punished.

Veld told me Dad had instructed him to bring me back to Midgar.

"Because of some stupid flyers in the toilets? No."

Wiley said, "It might be wiser - "

Veld cut him off. "I'm taking you home. It's not safe here.

"That's ridiculous. I'm not going."

I knew that if I let Veld take me away from Penscombe at that moment, I'd never be allowed to return.

Veld insisted. I refused. Back and forth, a tug of war. I felt I was fighting for my life. Dr Wiley was no bloody help at all. He probably would have been glad to see the back of me. My presence in his school made everything twice as complicated as it needed to be.

Then I remembered something important. "Penscombe's playing at home to Junon Military tomorrow. I'm the Captain. You can't ask me to abandon my team."

If Veld had truly believed my safety required me to return to Midgar, he wouldn't have given in. He knew perfectly well Dad was over-reacting. My commitment to my team was what swayed him round to my side. I should have thought of it earlier, and saved us both ten minutes of butting heads.

"You can stay for the match," he agreed. "I'll stay too. We'll all stay. I'll take you home afterwards."

I had won the first battle. I could win this war. "You should call my father and tell him to come watch me play. If he comes here he'll see how safe it is."

The night passed calmly and by the next day the panic was dying down. We annihilated Junon Military forty-three to seventeen. I scored two tries. Rude gave me the thumbs up from the sidelines; Rosalind whooped every time I took possession of the ball. What a great day that was. I only wished my old man had been there to see me. At the end of the match my team picked me up and carried me around on their shoulders, chanting my name. Rufus! Rufus! Not Shinra. Just _Rufus._

Veld shook my hand, said "Congratulations, Captain", and told me Dad had agreed I could stay, as long as Rude stayed with me. The flyer case had been solved. A groundsman who'd run off when the panic erupted had been caught by PSM, brought back to the school, questioned by Veld, and had made a full confession.

Rude became my shadow. He slept in Alex's bed, escorted me to lessons, ate meals with me in Commons, kept me company when I walked Dark Nation. He was a force-field holding my friends at bay. Mercedes scuttled away at the sight of him. Alex had to move out into Hughie and Johnnie's set, but he'd been spending more and more time there anyway. At the end of a fortnight no rogue gun-runners had blown up Fortitude House and no Crescent Unit ninjas had taken me captive, and my old man must have decided there were better uses for a trained Turk's time, because Rude was summoned back to Midgar.

Mercedes found me in the library. I was writing an essay for Braska. "Are you all right?" she asked.

"Why wouldn't I be?"

"Have you forgotten about those leaflets in the loo already? They were so horrible. I was really upset. Didn't they bother you?"

I told her what I told Tseng. Mako poisons. Shinra kills. Where's the lie?

"But doesn't _that_ bother you?"

A good question, Mercedes, worthy of a thoughtful answer. The reason I didn't have an answer ready was because I was only fourteen, and your question was new to me. This question, which you, in your guilty innocence, asked me so guilelessly, or guilefully (we'll never know now), is the one that started me thinking. I've been thinking about it for four years. And here I am.

Fuhito has never asked me that question. Does that surprise you? I'm ashamed to say that he probably understands me quite well. And here's the twist. Between the two of us, _I'm_ the conservationist. I only want to make a few minor adjustments. He wants to tear down everything. Total destruction. He has no interest in saving the planet. Did you figure that out before you died? I hope not.

Since I didn't have an authentic answer ready, I gave Mercedes the one she wanted to hear. "Of course it bothers me. That's _my_ name on those leaflets. But what can I do?"

She took my hand and squeezed it comfortingly, confirming I'd said the right thing. My words had made her happy. Making her happy made me happy. Life was so easy!

We sat there for a while holding hands and then she said, "Do you think he did it? The one who confessed?"

"He fled the scene of the crime. Why would he do that if he wasn't guilty?"

"Rufus - if someone didn't do it, what would make them confess?"

"Foolish ninja! Our Commander has ways of making people talk."

I thought she'd laugh at that, but she looked as if she was going to be sick. It stuck in my mind, that look on her face.


	8. Chapter 8

My door's opening. Tseng?

No - Dad. Fuck. Fuck. No. Why?

Dad _and_ Tseng, Tseng behind Dad. Whose fucking terrible idea was this?

Get up. Get up. Straighten yourself. He's here, you have to do this. Shoulders back – damn, those scars are tight -

"Son." He's touching the side of my face. Steady; don't flinch. He wants to hug me. Please don't hug me. He resists the urge. Did he sense my resistance? Unlikely; sensitivity isn't his strong suit. He pats my cheek, my shoulder, my arm as if I'm one of Aunt Pansy's birds. He doesn't know about the bruises my clothes conceal. Tell him? What, rat out my jailers? I'd rather bite my own tongue off.

It feels as if he's patting me to check whether I'm solid all the way through. Sorry, old man, the real Rufus made his escape year ago. Say hello to his doppleganger.

I'd have given Hojo my DNA for that. At last, something useful he could have made.

Dad wants to sit down. Needs to sit down; he's a little out of breath. He doesn't look well. Tseng brings him the chair I usually sit on during our interrogations. Dad waves his hand for me to sit. Other chair, or bed? The bed's further away from him. It creaks when I sit on it. Dad doesn't like the sound it makes. He doesn't like his flimsy metal chair. He's looking around the room, surprised and displeased by my living conditions, which only confirms his terminal lack of imagination.

"Are they looking after you, Rufus?"

What does he think I'll say? _Help me Daddy, they're mean to me_? Not even if they were sawing my legs off and pulling out my fingernails one by one.

"You're looking a bit peaky, son."

I expect I am. This room has no windows, no fresh air and no natural light and I've been shut in here for how long now? Not that I'm complaining. He'll never hear me complain. Stone walls do not a prison make. Third form, Miss Adebayo's lit class. We were each assigned a poem to memorise and that was mine.

"I'm fine, Dad."

"Eating all right?"

"The food is fine."

"That bed looks like a recipe for a bad back."

"It's fine, Dad."

"We'll organise something better. Get some rugs in here too, something on the walls to cheer the place up."

More proof, if proof were needed, that my stay here is unlikely to be of short duration.

"Becky can pack up some of your things for you. She thinks you're away on a business trip. Tour of the bases. That's what we've told everyone. Tseng thought it was best."  
"I'm sure Tseng knows what's best."

"Are you cooperating with him, son?"

"We are making progress, sir." Tseng is such a meddler.

"That's good. That's good."

Awkward silence.

Getting quite long, this awkward silence.

Well, it's not as if we ever did have much to say to each other.

Dad claps his hands on his knees once, twice, as if he's getting ready to heave his bulk up out of that chair and take his leave. Ah but no - he's opening his mouth, preparatory to delivering his parting piece of wisdom:

"You've made a damned mess of things, Rufus. I don't know how long it will take us to straighten it all out. Until we do, you're in here for your own safety. You understand that, don't you? With Fuhito and that treacherous sack of shit Veld running around lose out there, it's not safe for you to be outside. All it takes is one bullet."  
And he can't risk losing me, now Lazard's gone.

To have one child try to kill you, President Shinra, could be regarded as a misfortune, but when both children try to kill you it begins to look a lot like retribution.

Dad thinks he knows why I did it. That's why he doesn't ask. He's found an explanation his vanity can tolerate and he's sticking with it. Hasn't he always say there's such a thing as being too clever? He thinks his boy was miffed at being denied a more active role in company policy-making; he _knows_ his little clever-clogs lacked the experience to understand that he wasn't yet ready for such a role. In my arrogance and naivety I was seduced, misled, and used by our cunning foes. A kid like me never stood a chance against the diabolical cleverness of Fuhito.

Dad, I gave it my best shot and I failed. Just as you always predicted I would. That's why I deserve to be in here.

_Stone walls do not a prison make, nor iron bars a cage;_

_Minds innocent and quiet take that for a hermitage._

_If I have freedom in my love, and in my soul am free,_

_Angels alone, that soar above, enjoy such liberty._

My mind may not be innocent but at least it's quiet now. The farce is over. The truth is out. This little room on the floor between floors will be my hermitage, where they flog me daily for the good of my soul. Here I will lie like a hidden splinter trapped between the layers of my old man's skin, a splinter he can neither remove nor ignore.


	9. Chapter 9

Little kids believe the strangest things. When I was very small, I thought my old man was every child's father. Where did that notion come from? Everything belonged to him, so presumably it made sense to my tender mind that all the children in the world belonged to him too. Out of all those children, I alone had been chosen to live with him and call him Daddy. All the others, my infant logic reasoned, had been farmed out to new homes, as if they were a gigantic litter of puppies. In those days I thought adults had always been adults and children would always be children. I didn't understand about death.

I must have been three, or four at most, when I asked him, "Daddy, why am I the only one?"

He laughed. I don't remember getting any other answer. Just that laugh. He probably wasn't giving me his full attention. His mind was always on other things. If he did give me an answer, it can't have been a satisfactory one, because I took my question to my fake dad, the one who always had time for me. "Veld, why did Daddy give the others away and keep me?"

Why would my old man choose me, out of all the children in the world, when I was so weak and full of flaws?

I don't remember Veld's answer either. All I remember is the look on his face. Shocked. Appalled. Didn't I know this was something we did not talk about? Bad boy! Never ask again.

That can't have been what he was actually thinking, of course. He was probably just a little taken aback. My question was rather cryptic; no doubt he was trying to figure out what on earth I was talking about; what new bizarre idea I'd taken into my head.

That look on his face filled me with shame. And fear. Again. Thinking weak thoughts was bad enough. Saying them out loud was just stupid. If Daddy had chosen me, it stood to reason he could just as easily un-choose me. He could send me away any time he liked and pick some other, cleverer, braver little boy to be the lucky one.

How old was I when I grew out of that fear? I can't remember. In any case, I had plenty with which to replace it.

My fears were both irrational and fantastic. Monsters under the bed; ghostly footsteps on the staircase; the long slimy arm of the toilet creature lurking just around the u-bend, waiting for me to sit down so it could reach up, grab my bare bottom and drag me down to particularly disgusting death. My timidity exasperated my old man. He wanted a son like himself, bold, assertive, confident. Dad's lack of imagination is one of his strengths: he never stops to wonder if he might be wrong. When he showed me the architectural blueprints of the tower he was building for us to live in, he wanted me to feel the thrill of its dizzying height and power. I wanted him to show me the escape route. What if we're attacked by aliens from outer space, Daddy? He said I must be soft in the head. _Since you want an escape route, I'll build one_, he said. _For you, son. Not for me. Winners don't need escape routes. _

In our garden lived a tortoise that was my friend. It ate strawberries from my hand. I liked pretending I was a tortoise, trundling after it on all fours as it ambled across the grass. Heidegger's chauffeur drove over it one night by accident, not seeing, I suppose (I'll give the murderer the benefit of the doubt), that Mr Tortoise was fast asleep on the warm tarmac. Dad promised me he'd get me another one. Not long after, he came home from work with a stuffed plush Adamantoise big enough to use as a bed. I said, _but it's not alive, I want an alive one_, and he said, _this is better, isn't it? If it's not alive, it can't die._

All these memories are from the time before we moved to the tower, when we still lived in the house with the big garden out back. The floor in the front hallway of that house was tiled black and white like a chessboard; the hallway was big and cool and echoing, and the maids polished that floor until it reflected the staircase and the chandeliers hanging from the ceiling. It was like a faery pool. I had never seen a faery pool but I knew about them from my nanny's bedtime stories. Pilgrims stumbled across them in the wild woods. The waters were cold and infinitely deep. If you walked on the white tiles you could cross safely, but if you put your foot on a black tile you would sink down to the kingdom of the sahagin and the waters would close over your head. Your loved ones would search for you in vain.

The first time I saw Tseng he was walking across that polished floor, following behind Veld who, I presume, had come to the house for some meeting with my father. He wore a suit like Veld's in the same way that I wore suits like my father's whenever I had to go somewhere and have my photo taken, but his suit didn't deceive me. I could tell by the way he walked that he was a thing from the wild woods. A cat spirit, disguised in a borrowed skin, skillfully eluding danger. He knew exactly where to place his feet, and I understood, when I saw this, that something magical had come into my life at last. I had not dreamed and hoped in vain.

At that time I was suffering from a recurring nightmare in which I was mounted on a crazy machine that had run amok. Its feet were claws, its arms were spinning blades. It lurched from side to side, heading inexorably for a stone wall against which it was going to crush me, although I always woke up screaming before we reached that point. Dad was away from home more often than not, so it was some time (weeks? Months?) before the night came when he was woken from his sleep by a small boy screaming the house down. In his rage he made the entire household get out of bed and assemble in the foyer, my nannies and the housemaids and gardeners and even the kind cook who patiently made the bland meals which were all this picky eater would eat, and he shouted at them for what felt like hours, demanding _how long has this been going on_? and threatening to dismiss them all for gross incompetence. I couldn't stop crying. _Look at him,_ Dad shouted. _You useless sacks of shit, you're supposed to be taking care of him._

Whenever Dad started shouting, people started disappearing from my life. I didn't want my nannies or the maids or the kind cook to disappear. Since I'd caused the problem, I had to solve it. The solution was obvious: if I never slept again, I couldn't have a nightmare, could I?

I stayed awake all the next night. Tseng was the one who found me unconscious under the oak tree the following morning. I'd dropped off in mid-swing. Without any fuss he put me over his shoulder and carried me upstairs to nanny, who put me to bed. He seemed like a grown-up to me, although he can't have been more than fourteen. The next time I saw him, he asked me what the problem was. I told him my dream. He's the only person I've ever told. After I told him, I never had that nightmare again. I was sure he'd dispelled it with his wild magic. I was five years old.

I had never stopped asking for a live pet, and on my sixth birthday, or maybe my seventh, Dad gave me a blackbird in a cage. What kind of metaphor, or rebuke, was that bird intended to represent? What sort of father gives a bird in a cage to a child in a cage? I felt my bird's longing for freedom all the more keenly because I was not - not yet - conscious that I longed for the same thing. Tseng was the only person who realised something was bothering me. Waiting until we had a moment alone, he crouched down so that our eyes were level and asked me, "What's wrong, Rufus?" Instead of denying that anything was wrong, as I would have done with anyone else, I told him.

"Do you want to let it go?"

I nodded.

All the windows in my apartment in this building were - are - sealed shut. Tseng took off his jacket (revealing the guns in their black leather holsters! Thrill!), opened the cage (my small fingers had been unable to manage the latch), caught the bird in his hands (very gently), and wrapped it up in his jacket, concealing it completely. He took my hand and we rode in the lift down to the third floor, where there was a stockroom with a sash window. He closed the stockroom door behind us, opened the window, unrolled his jacket, picked up the ruffled bird and put it into my waiting hands, saying, "You should be the one to do this."

For a few moments it sat there, nested in my cupped palms, panting. I felt its beating heart, its fear, its longing.

"Let it go," said Tseng.

I threw my hands up and out, and the bird jumped into the air and flew away through the open window, into the blue sky. The sky around Midgar was still blue more often than not, in those days.

Tseng must have seen himself in that bird too. That was why he helped me to free it. In the moment when the bird took flight, we three were one: the bird, Tseng, and I. It rejoiced in its wings and we rejoiced with it. In that moment, we were all free.

As soon as it was out of sight I remembered it had been my father's gift. What would I say if he asked me where my bird was? How furious would he be when he found out I'd let it go? Would he call me a softy? A simpleton? A loser?

As if I'd spoken those fears aloud, Tseng said, "It was your bird, after all. You could do what you liked with it." He smiled at me, one conspirator to another. "We'll tell your father it died, shall we?"

Dad never did ask. He probably forgot all about it.


End file.
